Meat the Truth
고기에 대한 불편한 진실
- 기후 변화와 미래
| Synopsis | Meat the Truth' is a climate change film that pays attention to one of the most important causes of global warming: factory farming, a cause which was ignored in Al Gore's 'An Inconvenient Truth'. 'Meat the Truth' is presented by Marianne Thieme, leader of the Dutch Party for the animals. The film indicates that 18% of the greenhouse gases worldwide are caused by the livestock industry. The calculations used in the film derive from and have been validated by the Food and Agricultural organisation of the UN (FAO), the World Watch Institute, the Institute for Environmental Studies of the Free University Amsterdam and numerous other authoritative sources. Interviews with scientists and short As make clear to the viewers why factory farms are responsible for such a large amount of greenhouse gases. It appears to be rather simple: because nowadays people are producing meat as cheaply and as intensively as possible, there is an amazingly large amount of farm animals on this earth. In order to feed all those animals, a large production of grain and soy is needed. This causes a lot of deforestation in environmental sensitive places such as the Brazilian rain forest. Another problem is the release of the greenhouse gas methane by cows. Of all farm animals, cattle are the largest producers of methane, mostly through belching and farting. Methane is 21 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Due to the growing world population, the demand for meat has increased significantly and will continue to increase. It has been calculated that by the year 2050 the meat production will have doubled to 450 billion kilos each year. Meat the Truth offers a solution to the consumers: the tables made by the Free University Amsterdam, indicate that people can make a significant difference simply by eating less meat. For instance, if all Americans ate no meat for 1 day a week, this would result in the same carbon savings as taking 19.2 million cars off the road in the USA for a year long. For the making of this film, Marianne Thieme travelled to the US. She was hoping to meet Al Gore there to ask him why he left out the farm factories in his climate change film. She did not succeed in meeting him, but she did meet various other people who could tell her more about Al Gore's reason to ignore this issue. She visited for instance an ex farmer, the 'Mad Cowboy', who turned vegan after having worked many years in the intensive livestock industry. A range of international celebrities, such as Pamela Anderson, Bill Maher, James Cromwell, Emily Deschanel, Tony Denison, Esai Morales, Megan Blake, Debra Wilson Skelton, Elaine Hendrix, Kate Flannery, Carol Leifer, Joy Lauren, Hal Sparks, Constance Marie, Kristina Klebe, Skyler Gisondo, Graham Patrick Martin, Greg Vaughan and Touriya Haoud Vaughan, participated in the making of the international version of the film. |
Director
Gertjan Zwanikken 헤르티안 바니켄
| Director | Gertjan Zwanikken |
| Country | The Netherlands |
| Year | 2008 |
| Running Time | 74' |
| Genre | Documentary |
